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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22594165">Gethsemane</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphogenesis/pseuds/morphogenesis'>morphogenesis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Zero Escape (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Murder Mystery, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 14:08:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,577</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22594165</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphogenesis/pseuds/morphogenesis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Phi calls Sigma in the middle of the night with an urgent message: "I'm in Sparks. Come get me, please." When Sigma arrives he finds a murder mystery and a time paradox all-in-one, with a victim who doesn't belong in this history alongside Phi's own mother. The two set out to find who killed these people, and why.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sigma Klim &amp; Phi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. An Inexpensive Room</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brezifus/gifts">Brezifus</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired (heavily) by The X-Files episode “Demons” with one plot element from Julie Fortune's TXF fic "The Ghost of You" (namely the twist of the identity of the second murder victim). Title(s) from “Gethsemane” by Dry The River. The Edwardian Inn is based on the real Victorian Inn in Sparks, Nevada. For Bre, who told me to write and not worry about the rest.</p><p>ETA 2/16/21: This has been discontinued.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sigma couldn’t sleep in a bed without Diana, but Diana was at her mother’s house in NorCal and Sigma was in Nevada on standby, waiting for Crash Keys to tell him what his next move was. He made a makeshift body pillow by laying two pillows end to end, but they weren’t warm and they didn’t smell like freesia like Diana did after her nightly shower. He was left to toss and turn while waiting for a call he hoped wouldn’t come.</p>
<p>He’d just come off of a nice, long sabbatical from Crash Keys; he hadn’t intended to return at all but Phi, always and only Phi, influenced him. Yanked him along by the arm, really, but he would always let her. Phi said she needed him there with her, supporting her fieldwork with his lab work, and Diana agreed with her. Spurred by the two women he loved, Sigma made his choice. In his mind he chose his family first.</p>
<p>That was why when his phone rang at 3AM, right when he was drifting off to sleep, he checked just in case it was Diana or Phi. Seeing it was Phi, he answered and mumbled a greeting.</p>
<p>“Sigma?” She sounded dazed, like she was unsure if she’d called him or why.</p>
<p>“That’s me. What’s up?”</p>
<p>“Come get me.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“I’m in Sparks. Come get me, please.”</p>
<p>Sigma sat up in bed. Last he remembered Phi said she was in Loyalton, California convening with what Crash Keys suspected were Free The Soul holdouts disguising themselves as a support group for self-determined UFO abductees. And she’d said she planned to stay in California for two more days. “Wait, wait, where in Sparks?”</p>
<p>“The Edwardian Inn. I don’t know how I got here, but I need you to come.” Despite her plea, she spoke with a flat affect in words a little more than a murmur. She was so quiet instead of her usual forward manner and it reminded him of the way hostages spoke in 911 call recordings.</p>
<p>“Are you safe?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know.”</p>
<p>“Is anyone with you? Are you being followed?”</p>
<p>“Sigma…” </p>
<p>He heard her sigh, and then the dial tone as she hung up on him. Within twenty minutes he was barely dressed and driving to Sparks, three hours away from his location, hoping he found Phi alive and afraid of what he’d find besides her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>**</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sigma’s car hopped the curb taking the turn into the Edwardian’s parking lot. He swore but switched his attention to searching the lot for Phi’s car, which was easier now that the sun had risen. Scanning the lot, he saw her old green compact, something he’d teased suited her size when she bought it. It was a manual and she only knew how to drive a stick because he taught her. The closer he got to her now the more mundane memories like that popped up, like he was trying to remind himself that things had been normal before and they would be again as soon as he found her. That she was just fine. She was Phi, nothing hurt her.</p>
<p>After parking, he examined her vehicle, hoping it held a clue to her room number such as a discarded paper sleeve that often held hotel keycards. Instead of that, he found a smear of blood on the driver’s side handle, smears on the driver’s seat, the stick, and the steering wheel. Either she was bleeding freely now or she had been soaked in blood when she entered the car, but whose?</p>
<p>If she was trailing blood, he thought, maybe she’d marked her hotel room door trying to key in. He looked and two doors down saw a red splotch on one door. Upon closer examination it was a partial handprint, about where a person of Phi’s height might rest their hand if they were leaning against the door while trying to open it. And Phi had not only opened it but failed to close it all the way. That she’d left the door cracked for hours proved she wasn’t herself, or was too hurt to come back and open it.</p>
<p>Sigma took a deep breath before entering the room. Inside, the walls were a welcoming pale yellow and a queen bed took up the room plus charming well-coordinated furniture. They were in stark contrast to the bloodied clothing on the floor, trailing to the bathroom. He didn’t see Phi but he saw signs of her: her keys were on the bed, her boots by the door, her bag and its contents spilled on the floor. He followed the trail of clothes and knocked on the bathroom door. “Phi? It’s me.”</p>
<p>Phi didn’t respond, but the water was running.</p>
<p>Scared that she was either unconscious or dead, Sigma knocked again before announcing, “Sorry, I’m coming in.” When he opened the door steam swirled past him. It filled the bathroom along with the sound of running water and the room was hot; he could imagine what the water felt like inside the shower. “Phi?”</p>
<p>The curtain was outside of the tub and it moved but he wasn’t sure if that was the water hitting it or Phi. The floor was flooded from water trailing off the curtain; he knelt down in it and felt the knees of his jeans dampen. “Phi,” he tried one more time.</p>
<p>A groan came from behind the curtain.</p>
<p>“Can I open this?”</p>
<p>Another groan that might’ve been assent. Sigma didn’t want to make her uncomfortable but he had to see if she was injured, so he pulled the curtain back just enough to peek and see if Phi was okay.</p>
<p>Phi was sitting under the shower’s spray, knees to her chest and her arms wrapped around them, a towel covering her front like she’d been using it as a blanket. She was shivering despite the hot water, shivering despite the fact that her skin was red where the water was hitting her. She looked at him but didn’t respond either way to his presence. </p>
<p>Sigma turned the water off and once he ascertained she wasn’t visibly injured pulled the curtain back. He looked around for a dry towel or a robe for her to cover up and found a towel on the floor. “Take this, I’ll find you new clothes,” and he headed back to the bedroom to do just that. She had nothing else in the room besides her bag and keys, and her car was similarly bare. Sigma had to settle for pulling clean clothes out of the gym bag he kept in his trunk, a muscle shirt and sweatpants.</p>
<p>“Take your time, I’ll be here,” he said when he set the clothes on the countertop and then left the bathroom. He had to wait a few minutes for Phi to come out. She was swimming in his clothes and had to hold the waistband of the sweatpants in order to keep them up.</p>
<p>Phi sat on the bed beside him and stared into space before finally saying, “Thanks.” Her hands were still in her lap although her foot was bouncing like a rubber ball.</p>
<p>“I think you’re in shock, Phi,” he said gently, putting a hand on her knee to still it. “Let me take you to a hospital.” Diana would murder him if she knew he’d found a distressed Phi in a bloodied room and didn’t at least try to convince her to seek care.</p>
<p>Phi shook her head. “Wait. I’ll go but only if you help me with something first.” She looked at him and her eyes were dead serious with the first hint of emotion she’d shown since he found her. “When we get there, you can’t freak out and you can’t ask questions. Can you do that?”</p>
<p>Sigma weighed his answer. He could try to pick her up and forcibly take her to the ER, but though she was little she was mighty (and the perfect height to kick him in the balls with enough force to make him puke). More than that she trusted him enough to call him from a hotel room in Sparks, even knowing he was hours away. She was his partner in crime and his friend and she was asking for his help.</p>
<p>“Okay.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>**</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Phi hadn’t had to drive far from her previous location to the hotel; according to her recall she had visited her mother’s house the previous night and what she’d found had led her to shaking in the shower for Sigma to find that morning. Her mother lived in Reno which was a hop and a skip away. On the drive there she wouldn’t explain what they were to do once they arrived.</p>
<p>She let herself into the house; she didn’t need a key. The door was open and Sigma noticed some blood around the doorknob where Phi must have left it. He followed her inside. </p>
<p>The smell was the first thing that hit him: copper. Sigma had seen enough movies to know what they’d find next.</p>
<p>On the living room floor was the body of an old woman he’d met only once before—Phi’s mother. She was facedown with a neat hole in the back of her head, and Phi ignored her in favor of the second body prone in the doorway separating the living room from the kitchen. When Sigma saw who it was he had to catch his breath.</p>
<p>There was one Phi on the floor, dead, and a living Phi kneeling beside her, looking her own corpse over. The dead Phi had been shot as well, Sigma guessed, judging by the matching entry wound in her head. He had seen a million permutations of his and her deaths but he had to look away from this. It was wrong, like seeing their reflections in a perverse funhouse mirror. Here is the living Phi, there is the dead one. A certain man and his cat would find nothing wrong with the picture, but Sigma’s cats at home loved Phi and all preferred her alive.</p>
<p>“I didn’t do this,” Phi said, getting up off of her knees and turning to Sigma. She was getting her personality back and looked determined. “I need you to help me find who did.”</p>
<p>“Are you going to explain the dead Phi?”</p>
<p>“We need to figure that out, too.” She swallowed and looked at her other self once more. “But one thing at a time.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Find The Drowning and The Drowned</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm having too much fun tbh. Thanks D for telling me that as a Catholic Phi's mom would have a dozen crucifixes around the house.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I’ve counted five crucifixes so far,” Sigma called from the dining room. His voice was too loud for the house, the moment, but Phi would allow it. “What’s the point of this?”</p><p>“To keep you busy.” She’d sent him to count all the relics in Mom’s house while she inspected her own body. They were waiting for Crash Keys fixers to arrive and haul the bodies away for examination by a forensic pathologist. Phi didn’t know what they would turn up that wasn’t immediately obvious, but she needed the bodies out of the house. It was too disturbing to see Mom like this and she swallowed nausea every time she saw her. They’d covered Mom with her favorite afghan, and the other Phi with a duvet.</p><p>Upon examination the other Phi—they had dubbed her “Rho” for simplicity’s sake—was similar to the living Phi. She was a similar age (had no ID but they guessed based on her smooth face, similar body weight, and the same metal filling in her left molar Phi had gotten when she was 21), carried a gun identical to Phi’s own gun for work, wore clothes Phi owned in this history, and overall was unremarkable. She was far apart enough from Mom that it was clear one of them had been running to escape when they died; Phi hoped it wasn’t her.</p><p>When Phi tried she could see only flashes of a night and she didn’t even know if those memories were hers or Rho’s, or how to untangle them. She saw Mom in the doorway to the kitchen, someone behind her, the flash of a gun firing, and then the pile of the carpeting in her face as she lay on the floor. She couldn’t use any of it if it wouldn’t help her identify Mom’s killer, or where Rho came from.</p><p>“Why does Jesus need to be on the cross over your stovetop?”</p><p>“Because He died for your sins, He can be wherever He wants,” Phi shot back. It was an old quip Mom made whenever they argued about this. Phi and Sigma had a lot of sins between the two of them. The banter helped keep them focused, she thought. From the moment she picked up the phone, standing in the hotel room with blood-covered hands, she knew she needed him first and foremost. Then she would know what to do. They weren’t functioning if they weren’t trading little quips and barbs disguising affection. It was saving her sanity when by all logic she should be on the floor.</p><p>Sigma returned and gently re-covered Rho, shooing Phi’s hand away from her. “Do you remember her?”</p><p>“Only by looking in the mirror,” Phi said. “I would know if I’d met myself.”</p><p>“Do you remember being here? How did you know to come back?”</p><p>“Because I came to here. Before this I remember driving to Loyalton, but nothing else.” She was lying about Loyalton, but he didn’t have to know about that yet. She did remember driving in this direction, but nothing after. What would make her turn back around? She remembered pulling off the highway to get something to eat, and then nothing before waking up here, on her feet with Mom on the floor. She screamed, her knees weakened, her entire body went freezing cold, and when she stepped back she bumped into Rho on the floor. After that she really didn’t know what to think; she examined herself, she held Mom for a while in shock (presumably covering herself in the blood), and then she stumbled out the front door and she remembered the beep of the car as she started it without wearing her seatbelt.</p><p>She remembered tearing alone along a stretch of road, screaming further because she was alone, and then fumbling through her belongings on the floor of the hotel room, looking for her phone because she needed Sigma but Sigma wasn’t there. </p><p>She just ran away. She ran away from her mother. “I feel like such an idiot.” She realized her hands were shaking when Sigma touched them, holding one. </p><p>As if reading her mind, he said, “When I lost your—Diana, I don’t think I bathed for a month. I didn’t eat, and I slept sitting up in the lab trying to figure out where I went wrong. Why I was the one who failed.”</p><p>“What are you getting at?” Phi smoothed the duvet corner against the floor again and again.</p><p>“There’s no right way to react to death. I think you’re hurting even more than you know.” He put an arm around her shoulders. “But you’re not alone.”</p><p>Phi put a hand over Sigma’s on her arm, then nodded. “Hey. Don’t tell Diana yet.” </p><p>When Mom met Sigma and Diana, she seemed to enjoy herself, yet at the end of the visit smiled sadly and said she wished them well but she didn’t want to see them again. Diana had taken it hard and Phi knew she would take news of Mom’s death harder. But more than that, she would be sad for Phi and Phi couldn’t handle anyone being sad for her right now; she wanted that engulfing love but she would break once she was in Diana’s arms. Phi needed to focus right now.</p><p>“Okay. Anything unusual about Rho?”</p><p>“Not that I can see. She could be a me who never went to college, or a me who never joined Crash Keys for all I know.”</p><p>“How did she get into the transporter then?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” It was the only way a complete flesh and blood Phi could exist in two places at once, but they didn’t even know where the transporter was to this day, years after the Decision Game. They’d been trying to crack Delta’s location for years; it had haunted Phi from the second he escaped in a Jeep that rushed up on the group in the desert years ago.</p><p>Phi looked back at her mother, and then to the door. “But my mom might.”</p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>Though it was hard, she left Mom and Rho in favor of heading to Mom’s office at UNR. In addition to being a researcher, Mom had become an Associate Professor of Physics after adopting Phi. She was an unusual figure, being older than God and too old to avoid rolling her eyes whenever her coworkers annoyed her in meetings, and not well-liked on campus, but she was damn good. She was the cliche “too good to fire” employee and because of it she maintained her own office and prime rights to the lab. Phi hoped she had anything in there that would explain who she’d let into her home in the moments leading up to her death—or who had broken in.</p><p>She’d stolen Mom’s keycard, ID, and keys to her office before leaving the house, and they all still worked as she was still officially alive. Her office was the complete opposite of the house: crammed with clutter like books and outdated documents and monitors with no computer towers. She would’ve grounded Phi and thrown out everything sitting out if she found Phi’s room like this.</p><p>Something on her desk caught Phi’s attention: it was a small framed photo of her and Phi at Phi’s high school graduation, Phi looking miserable, red, and shiny in the gown because it was hot as Hell that day. Mom looked composed in her white dress and pale blue blazer, her pocketbook under her arm, her other arm around Phi, and a small smile on her lips.</p><p>Seeing that smile, Phi suddenly felt pain in her head and held it, moaning. The next second, she was seeing through her own eyes and yet not:</p><p>
  <i>”Mom,” Phi said as she leaned back against a bookshelf and upset several folders. “This place is a dump.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Some of us have jobs, dear,” Mom said without looking up from her journal. “And unless you came here to clean tell me what’s really on your mind.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“You know what it is! Please come with me.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“No and don’t waste my time with that again. This is my home and I’m not traipsing around with your company, being protected by you like you’re the mother.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Don’t you care what happens if you die? All the knowledge that dies with you?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Has it occurred to you that that might be what I want?”</i>
</p><p>When she came to Phi was seated at the desk, Sigma at her arm.</p><p>“Seriously, something is wrong with you,” he said. “Let’s go and let Tenmyouji handle—”</p><p>“No and don’t say that again. This is my case, like he said.”</p><p>“Maybe it shouldn’t be.”</p><p>“If it were your mother? Diana? Me?”</p><p>“That’s not fair.”</p><p>“Then don’t tell me to stop.”</p><p>“And if the person who killed them finds out you’re alive?”</p><p>“We’ll worry about it when we get there.”</p><p>“That’s something I would’ve said back then.” Old Sigma operated on the assumption that he wasn’t enough for her. She could never get through to him that he was still Sigma. “What are we looking for?”</p><p>Phi explained to him what she saw in her vision and settled for Mom’s journal that she’d been writing in at the time of their conversation. They searched and found her latest research journal, which explained that she was supposed to meet with an old friend but had died before she could. “So we’ll meet the friend if we can find them.” Phi had an idea of who to call to help them with that.</p><p>Tenmyouji came through again. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said when he gave her the info. In the background a woman said something in Japanese and judging by his tone she was pestering him, and then he said, “Akane wants you to know she says hello and she’s glad you’re alright.”</p><p>“Thanks, both of you.”</p><p>Tenmyouji hung up. He hadn’t said much but his concern was obvious. He’d wanted to come out himself but compromised when Phi said she wanted to do this herself, and promised that he would support her from behind the scenes. He had enough on his plate and honestly Phi wanted as few people as possible involved in the field. Sigma was in on it and that was more than enough.</p><p>“So we’re going to meet Mom’s friend,” Phi said and Sigma nodded at her though he looked concerned. </p><p>Phi stood and nodded to him before heading out the door. They’d filled a bag with whatever seemed relevant and still had to investigate both this friend and why Phi had been in the area. Both Phi and Rho.</p><p>“You ready?” Sigma asked.</p><p>She had to be.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. From Those Insubstantial Men</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After making contact with the associate of Phi’s mother, they learned that he couldn’t meet them until the next day, so they had plenty of time that afternoon and evening to pore over what they could glean from Phi’s hotel room. Sigma kept up best he could; it reminded him of a long time and another Sigma ago, when they tried to solve the would-be murder mystery of Luna and Clover. If he was that type of man anymore he would call this time nostalgic.</p>
<p>Phi held up the gun she carried for work. “It hasn’t been fired. All the bullets are in the chamber and I didn’t bring any spare ammunition. I don’t know about Rho.” They hadn’t taken Rho’s things, leaving them for forensic examination by Crash Keys.</p>
<p>“So it wasn’t you shooting in your memory.” Phi had told Sigma about her visions, having had only a few of them since he arrived. She couldn’t piece everything together from that night and he was frustrated for her. So far they’d determined she was likely seeing through a combination of Rho’s eyes and her own on that night, and that the state of the bodies suggested they hadn’t been dead long when Phi found them. “Was Rho there when your mother…”</p>
<p>“Yeah. I saw it.” Phi’s fist curled and uncurled over her knee, and she stood and stretched. “Rho was there. Mom was shot first. She…” Phi sighed. “She died instantly.”</p>
<p>Sigma didn’t say ‘I’m sorry’ just then because he knew she would want to hear it when it was all over, not a moment before. When that time came he’d hug her and say he was so sorry and she deserved better, but not now. “Did you see who did it?”</p>
<p>“I can’t make it out when I try to remember. The flash is so bright and it’s like… Like my vision is underwater. I can only see shapes.” She rubbed a spot above her ear, mussing the hair there. She’d tried to let it fade out to red once at Diana’s insistence but decided she hated it and went straight back to silver. “Maybe it was a man. Or… No, I’m just shooting in the dark. I don’t want to assume anything.”</p>
<p>Sigma nodded and wrote down on the hotel notepad ‘Vision = Water.’ He had drawn a rough top-down diagram of the house to show where the bodies were in relation to each other and the points of entry, and he was writing now to feel useful. “And your bag had no clothing. Why do you think that is?”</p>
<p>“I guess I wasn’t planning on staying long.”</p>
<p>“That doesn’t make any sense.”</p>
<p>“I wish I knew too, Sigma,” Phi said with a hint of tension in her voice, tame for her. She put a hand on her stomach when it growled and looked disconcerted. “I’m not hungry,” she said before he could bring it up.</p>
<p>“Just eat something.”</p>
<p>“Kinda lost my appetite.”</p>
<p>In the end she agreed to eat whatever Sigma fetched, in exchange for being left alone at the hotel while he got it. He didn’t hurry, knowing Phi and that she’d appreciate the time alone. He drove aimlessly, not knowing what to do once he returned to Phi. He could help with scientific testing, he could follow her lead, and he could listen to her when she was ready to talk. It was disturbing, what he’d seen, and he felt for the daughter he never knew. Doctor Phi lived an entire life he’d never been privy to, and the circumstances of him letting her go were so unfair that he still wanted to scream sometimes when he thought about them.</p>
<p>But he still had a daughter, didn’t he? He chewed on a hangnail as he thought about it and decided that no, he didn’t anymore. He had something better; he and Phi were best friends, family because they chose to be family. So it was his job to be there for her right now.</p>
<p>Still, he had to call Diana as he realized he hadn’t even told her where he was. Her perfect voice perked him up, and he felt like he said he loved her a dozen times before they hung up. She was uncertain, he could tell, about his sudden road trip, and asked probing questions about why Phi was in Nevada so soon and what their plans were. He kept his answers neutral, saying it was a ‘Phi and Sigma adventure’ but they’d be home soon.</p>
<p>He returned to Phi bearing fast food breakfast sandwiches. He picked out the bacon on his and ate Phi’s hashbrowns to her annoyance. They chatted about Diana and work like it was a normal day.</p>
<p>“Hey Phi?”</p>
<p>“Yeah?”</p>
<p>“Why did you have to tell me you didn’t do it?”</p>
<p>Phi said, “It looks bad, being the person caught with a bunch of dead bodies, y’know? I didn’t want you to think…”</p>
<p>“C’mon, you know me better than that.”</p>
<p>Phi hid the faintest smile. “I guess.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>**</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Phi started complaining of a headache later that day, while they were taking a break from looking into her mother’s routine during her last days alive. When it resulted in Phi vomiting in the scrub by the hotel, Sigma put his foot down and took her to the hospital. They sat in silence in the waiting room, Sigma distracting himself with the home improvement shows on the TV.</p>
<p>“That tile looks terrible,” Sigma said, gesturing to the screen. “You can tell the owners hate the remodel.”</p>
<p>Phi gave a weak chuckle. She held her head with her elbows braced on her knees.</p>
<p>“Why didn’t you tell me you felt bad?” Sigma knew the answer already; it was Phi.</p>
<p>“Because we don’t have time to waste. Where’s my phone? Tenmyouji said he’d get back to me as soon as he knew something.”</p>
<p>Sigma was holding onto it for her because she said she couldn’t stand looking at the screen. He humored her and checked the phone. “No messages.” They’d have to wait a while still, he figured.</p>
<p>The diagnosis was a concussion, with no other obvious damage to her head or brain. Sigma cursed that he’d let Phi nap on the drive earlier. Phi said she could see fine, and swore she didn’t feel a knot on her head or remember being attacked. Her car hadn’t been in an accident either. The orders were to keep an eye on her and not let her sleep for a bit.</p>
<p>“How long are you gonna make me take care of you?” Sigma joked on the ride home.</p>
<p>Phi groaned and lolled her head against the seat. “Sigma? Do me a favor and shut up.”</p>
<p>“You don’t wanna brainstorm what happened?”</p>
<p>“I will when my head isn’t killing me.”</p>
<p>Who had attacked her, or had she been in some other accident and didn’t know? Just what had happened that night, and why? Sigma didn’t know when they’d have their answers. He only knew he had a responsibility to see it through.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Whatever Their Arguments</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I need new clothes,” Phi grumbled as she pulled up the waistband of Sigma’s sweatpants for the fortieth time. “Take me somewhere.”</p><p>“I don’t remember being the chauffeur,” Sigma said, but drove her to the nearest big box store. He left to ponder their selection of protein powders, and Phi searched for anything that didn’t look ridiculous and actually fit her.</p><p>In the dressing room she sank into a crouch, arms around her knees and balancing on her heels. She took deep breaths and tried to ignore the pain in her head. It would be so easy to leave Sigma and SHIFT to a time before Mom died. Phi knew he would follow her and that would introduce new problems, as their choices would splinter time and create worlds where she failed anew. Asking Akane to use the morphic fieldset was out of the question for now (if Akane hadn’t already, of course), because Phi knew that Akane would wave her hand and say it was just one of many possible histories, so not to worry about it. Well, Phi wanted justice in this history, not another.</p><p>There existed a history where Mom was saved, and another where she’d never crossed paths with her murderer. That was what hurt the most.</p><p>Phi picked out a shirt and skirt that didn’t clash, and that was enough for her. They had a meeting to get to.</p><p>“Come on,” she told Sigma after buying her clothes and changing in the store bathroom.</p><p>Sigma looked longingly at the protein powders before saying, “Of course.” He opened his mouth but then closed it, his unspoken question not ready to reveal itself.</p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>They met Mom’s associate at a diner serving dishes like bison hash and vegan crepes. Phi wasn’t hungry; food had lost all appeal when Mom died. </p><p>The associate’s name was Matthias, and he was a short man, dark-haired, with a beseeching quality to him like he was asking to be taken seriously. He explained he had worked with Mom on a project once and they’d stayed in touch. She had been planning on collaborating with him again before she died.</p><p>“I’ve heard of you,” Matthias said. “From your mother. Always thought it was funny how you two have the same name.”</p><p>“My mother was Phyllis,” Phi said coolly.</p><p>“Around the lab, she was Phi.”</p><p>Phi never knew that, that Mom had held on to any vestige of her birthright. She exhaled through her nose. “What can you tell us about why my mother wanted to meet with you?”</p><p>“She wanted to discuss her new research. Just her pipe dream really, about a way to send the consciousness through time! She was brilliant, but…” He shook his head. “Could be crazy, sometimes. Crazy funny, crazy-crazy.” He sobered. “She seemed very protective of it though. She said her subject was very important to her and she didn’t want to expose them for nothing. So she didn’t talk much.”</p><p>Sigma leaned forward in his seat. Until then he had been busy stirring creamer packet after creamer packet into his coffee. “What she told you… Did she ever mention names?”</p><p>“No, but she did confide in me she felt like she was being watched, in the past week or so. But she was always an odd bird. I wouldn’t be surprised if she felt like that a lot. I’m not much help, huh?”</p><p>“No,” Sigma said, disappointed. “You’re not.”</p><p>They bid Matthias a less-than-fond farewell, and in the car metaphorically threw up their hands.</p><p>“He was worse than useless,” Phi complained.</p><p>“Not necessarily. He did say your mother knew someone was watching her.”</p><p>“But <i>who</i>, Sigma?”</p><p>“That’s where we double back. Her routine was normal, but something about her must’ve been a tell. Think, Phi.”</p><p>Phi rubbed her temples, as if trying to stimulate her thoughts. “It’s not related to the past week, but a few months ago, she mentioned she was working on a new project, and she had a potential sponsor. Someone affiliated with the university, like a donor? I bet if we could get into their Development department we could get some important names.”</p><p>“I can do you one better,” Sigma said, and gunned the engine.</p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>They went back to UNR, to its massive library and its even larger back catalogue of its own university magazine, <i>Nevada Silver &amp; Blue</i>. Combing through back issues, they found lists honoring large donors to the university, and they cross-referenced the lists to see whose names kept coming up and under which categories of donors. They ruled out corporations and charitable foundations, them being too large to investigate without an amount of time they didn’t have, and they settled on a step below. Big spenders still, but not as big.</p><p>Phi scanned the list, hoping for a familiar name, a hint, a clue as to what on Earth had happened to her mother and her other self. Something had to click.</p><p>And then it did.</p><p>She pointed to one name, a woman, a Vanessa Frazier. </p><p>“I know her.”</p><p>“You do?” Sigma hurriedly set aside his magazine, which Phi noticed disapprovingly he was open to a profile of the university’s swim team, photos in their suits included. “Who is she?”</p><p>“I think… I think she came to one of my mom’s dinners once.” Mom was the most socially active misanthrope Phi knew. She used to hold dinner parties, inviting fellow faculty members and authors and artists and researchers. The conversation could get raucous; Phi would creep out of bed and peer around the corner at it all, wishing she was big enough to join the party. Mom only let her come out of her room long enough to impress the guests with her new Latin recitation or science fact.</p><p>Phi remembered Frazier because the name was paired with a strikingly tall, lean body and face. Looking back, Phi was attracted to her, and that had made an impression.</p><p>“Is she our woman though?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Phi admitted. “But she has to be better than nothing.” They skimmed the other issues they’d gathered, but didn’t find anyone else of note. A quick Internet search showed them Vanessa Frazier was COO of a Nevada software company, someone Mom might be tangentially related to if only for their common bent.</p><p>“So all we have to do is gain access to a high-powered businesswoman. Easy.”</p><p>“Well when you travel with Crash Keys, anything is possible,” she said.</p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>“Aoi looked at his files, the name is familiar,” Junpei said, a chewing sound into the phone announcing he was eating at the same time. “Vanessa Frazier approached his shell company with an investment opportunity a few months ago. Something about new proprietary software for payroll?”</p><p>“Is that something Crash Keys would even be interested in?”</p><p>“No, but you know it’s never that simple,” Junpei chided. She wanted to slap whatever he was eating out of his hand for being smug. “She wanted to meet with him to discuss the transporter.”</p><p>Phi’s hands were cold; Sigma, as if sensing something was wrong, mouthed ‘What?’</p><p>“Did she know anything?”</p><p>“She implied she did, but she refused to say anything of value unless we paid up. Aoi was still bargaining with her when she disappeared.”</p><p>“Great. Very helpful.”</p><p>“Hey, you asked if we knew the name, not if we had your answer. Cheer up, I have some forensics info for you. Rho’s phone indicates she intended to come straight to your mom. So what did she want, Phi? I bet you know, if you look.”</p><p>Damn if he wasn’t right, but when Phi tried to press her memories and reach for what was Rho’s, her head screamed at her. She scowled, wishing Junpei could see her. “I’ll let you know. You ever plan on being helpful, Junpei?”</p><p>“It’s what I’m here for.”</p><p>Phi hung up on him, their conversation over for now. She told Sigma what Junpei said and then she added, “Let’s go back to the house. We never searched Mom’s study.”</p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>At the house, Sigma asked her, “What made you turn around, from Loyalton to here?” They were deep in books and dust and frustration. Mom’s study was just like her office at work: a mess. Sigma was sorting through notebooks; Phi tried her hand at cracking the password to Mom’s laptop. She’d tried birthdays, her late wife’s name, and various combinations of numbers.</p><p>“If I knew...” she began, feeling nervous that he would guess just by looking at her.</p><p>“So look.”</p><p>“It’s not that easy!” Phi rubbed her head, hoping to play on his sympathy. She wanted to know how she’d ended up with a concussion; she didn’t remember being attacked, so how?</p><p>“Or are you afraid?”</p><p>“Shut up, Sigma.”</p><p>“It’s okay if you are.”</p><p>“I said it’s fine.”</p><p>“So look through Rho’s memories,” he challenged her again.</p><p>Phi threw herself down in a chair and looked.</p><p>
  <i>”If you want to threaten me, go ahead.</i>
</p><p>Mom’s voice. That was what Phi heard, but she couldn’t see who Mom was speaking to or why or when. Phi groaned. She pushed through the pain again and saw:</p><p>
  <i>”Mom, tell me what’s going on,” Phi—Rho—warned. Her voice was hard but her heart beat fast, her arms folded over her chest as she stood in the kitchen doorway. “I came to help you.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Mom put a hand on her hip, gesturing with her other hand holding a pair of socks. “And I didn’t ask you to. Now hurry up and get out of here, my love,” she said, softer. “I won’t ask you to throw your life away for me.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Then someone was behind her.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Mom!”</i>
</p><p><i>A gunshot.</i>  </p><p>In the present, Phi roared, “I know that! Why did it happen!”</p><p>Sigma looked at her in surprise. “So I take it that didn’t go well.”</p><p>“I just saw her get shot again. I was trying to convince her to tell me what was wrong and—” Phi touched her mouth, thinking, before saying, “She knew someone was coming for her.”</p><p>“Did she say who?”</p><p>“No, it was just in the way she spoke. We spoke. I said I’d come to help her and she said not to throw my life away.” She snapped her fingers. “The socks, she was packing to leave!”</p><p>Phi ran to Mom’s room and found an open suitcase on the bed, half-filled with Mom’s clothes, a book, and a journal. The journal she’d been writing in in Phi’s other vision. Phi opened it up and sat on the edge of the bed; finally Sigma joined her in the room.</p><p>Phi scanned the journal, hoping for clues. It was mostly work notes from Mom, and some observations about her day. She wasn’t sentimental, but when she mentioned Phi she regurgitated everything Phi told her about herself and her life. What was concerning was how she knew a few things Phi definitely didn’t tell her. Phi raised an eyebrow. That was interesting. Mom knew where Phi traveled for work—Phi never told her for security reasons. She knew about the intended trip to Loyalton. Including Phi, two other people knew about that trip: Junpei and Sigma.</p><p>So which one of them was leaking info about her to Mom?</p><p>Phi looked up at Sigma, who gazed back at her in question.</p>
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